Not all believers get caught up in millennial fever.

Gary DeMar, author of “Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church,” suggests that rampant speculation over the second coming may be harming the Christian church.

DeMar is a conservative evangelical who believes Jesus will return one day but cautions against using current events to justify date setting.

“When prophetic writers make the claim that everything is lining up for the end times today, they have done that in the past,” DeMar writes. “If I were a skeptic, why would I believe you? You have been saying this for 20 years, 40 years, 100 years, 200 years, and 300 years, using the same Bible verses, and things did not come to pass as you claimed.”

Skeptics of Christianity point to what is perceived to be unfulfilled prophecies to question the validity of other biblical teachings.

Current world events are not the only things that raise interest in the end times.

Much of the fervor over last days is due to Bible hermeneutics, how we interpret what we read.

A literal reading of many texts containing symbolic language has led to spurious interpretations. For instance, some modern day prophets have suggested that the locusts in Revelation 9:7 are 20th century helicopters.

It is doubtful if first century Christians reading John’s Revelation would have come up with the same interpretation. The first principle of Bible interpretation is to ask how would the person to whom the letter was written have understood it?

After all, John addressed the Revelation to the churches of his day and its primary meaning was for them.

In every century since, however, Christians have been tempted to make the visions and prophecies of the Bible fit their generation.

Centuries of predicting Christ’s return have one thing in common; they have all been wrong. Even so, many still try and fix a date on the end.

A widely publicized Ipsos poll in 2007 reported that 25 percent of Americans expected to witness the Second Coming—in that very year!

Because everyone has been wrong in the past, however, does not mean that Jesus’ return will not occur at some point in the future. It does mean that setting dates is a losing proposition.

If all of this is confusing, don’t despair. Understanding how the end takes place is not key to Christian living or necessary to enjoying fellowship with other Christ-followers. About the end times, former presidential candidate and ordained Baptist minister, Mike Huckabee, states that it is “unfortunate when we get obsessed with what the deadline is, and not what it is we ought to be doing in preparation for the deadline.” People are “focused on when the test is going to be given, not what’s on the test.”

Del Loy is pastor of Crosspoint Church in Natchez. This is the third in a three part series.